In Merrie, Merrie England
by Victoria M
Summary: Well, in January 1919, I think it was - yes, it was, because I remember it was a dreadfully cold day - Bunter turned up here saying he'd wangled himself out..." Busman's Honeymoon


"Well, in January 1919, I think it was - yes, it was, because I remember it was a dreadfully cold day - Bunter turned up here saying he'd wangled himself out..."

"Bunter never said that, Duchess!"

"No, dear, that's my vulgar way of putting it. He said he had succeeded in obtaining his demobilisation, and had come immediately to take up the situation Peter had promised him."  
(BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON)

**IN MERRIE, MERRIE ENGLAND**

Ex-Sergeant Bunter, now plain Mr Bunter, was sitting in the Bird and Bucket, downing whisky with the single-minded determination of a man who had permanently removed his army uniform only four hours before.

The War had been over for two months, but it had taken him that long to wangle his way out of His Majesty's Service, and now, like most of the others in the dingy establishment, he was celebrating his hard-won freedom. The room was cloudy with the fug of cigarettes – readily available cigarettes, cigarettes that could be smoked down to the butt, instead of hoarded for trading – and roaring with the noise of the freshly demobbed. Beside the bar, a group of newly-fledged civilians raised their voices in blaringly triumphant song:

_I don't want a bayonet in my belly,  
I don't want my bollocks shot away!  
I'd rather be in England,  
In merry, merry England,  
And fornicate my bleeding life away!_

"'Nother one!" said Bunter, and waved his glass in the air. Sloshing about in his innards was a quantity of booze sufficient to flood a small Fenland village, but it still wasn't enough. There were memories he wanted to wash away, inner landscapes of mud and filth and putrefaction, and alcohol, as every soldier knows, is the best disinfectant there is.

"Here you go, Merv," said Annie, the proprietress of the establishment, hooking one arm around his neck and wriggling herself onto his lap. She was a hard-working woman who never missed a business opportunity, and besides, even in civvies Mr Bunter was a fine figure of a man.

"You got any plans?" she added. She meant for the evening, but Bunter, less practised in holding his drink than he had been before conscription, was unusually slow on the uptake.

"Don't know," he mumbled. "Ain't going back to Sir John, I'll tell you that for nothing. I'm done with service, I am. Military or otherwise."

"Oh yeah?" said Annie, fixing him with a sceptical eye. "Come into a fortune, have you?"

"No," admitted Bunter. "Not as such. But four years watching your mates get blown arse over tit makes a man think. I didn't knock the stuffing out of Kaiser Bill just to go back to pressing trousers and holding doors open for some chinless wonder. I had enough of them in Wipers." His voice acquired an unmistakably plummy quality. "All right, you men, over the top, and no dilly-dallying. Last one to the barbed wire's a big sissy."

Annie giggled. "You ought to go on stage, you ought."

"Are you calling me a ponce?" growled Bunter.

"What, you? Not a chance!" said Annie. "Though if you don't stop drinking soon, you're goin' to be rendered incapable."

"There is nothing on this earth," said Bunter grimly, "that could render me incapable. I bin waiting eight months for this. Only first I'll have another whisky."

He pulled out his wallet and peered into it. The wallet gaped back at him, remarkably empty for an item that only a few brief hours ago had been bursting with his demob pay. Had he really drunk that much? It was hard to tell. The rising alcohol levels had reached the top of his skull now and were sloshing violently around inside his head. It made it difficult to think. He thrust the wallet at Annie.

"Here, you get me another one," he slurred.

"Oh, Merv," said Annie. He wasn't the first soldier she'd seen demobbed, and he wasn't going to be the last, and it was undeniably good for business the way they all, without exception, headed straight for the nearest brothel. But Annie had been raised to believe that a penny saved was a penny earned, and it pained her to see all those men staggering off into an uncertain future without even a farthing to show for their years in the trenches.

Bunter rolled a somewhat wobbly eye at her. He was a good-looking man, and her heart was softened. "Have this one on the house," she said. He would undoubtedly be rendered _entirely_ incapable by it, but that was no longer any concern of hers, since he didn't have the money to pay for it anyway.

"Maybe I'll join the police force," said Bunter, as she returned, whisky in hand. What was left of his mind had been ruminating, like Annie, on the empty wallet, and the pressing need to refill it. "I'd like a job where I had to use me wits."

"I don't think they're looking for anyone," said Annie. "The police was exempt from conscription."

"Lucky bastards," agreed Bunter mournfully. "What am I goin' to do, then? The country's full of blokes lookin' for work, and all I know how to do is hold a rifle and press trousers. If the police won't have me, who will?"

"I don't know why you're so set against service," said Annie. "My dad always used to tell us kiddies that the surest way to get comfortable in life was to have our feet under someone else's table."

"Reckon I'll have to," said Bunter morosely. "It's that or starve, ain't it? I don't fancy bivvying up under bridges at my time of life."

"I always think it depends who you're working for," said Annie encouragingly. "Some employers can be quite the gentleman. They ain't all tossers. Didn't you ever see anyone you might like to work for at your old job?"

"Not at the Park, no," said Bunter, and took a thoughtful pull at his whisky. "Did get an offer from a senior officer once. Old Winderpane. He was a decent sort of bloke, for a nob. Had guts, too. Anyway, he said he'd always have a place for me after the War."

"Well, then, there you have it. Go to him and ask for that job."

"Can't. He got blown up, didn't he?"

"Killed?" said Annie sympathetically. It sounded like the start of what she was beginning to think of as the same old story, but a good madam knows when to shut her mouth as well as open it.

"Nah. Went chumpy. This shell went off and buried him under six foot of mud. We dug him out all right, and got him off to hospital, but his nerves was shot, and he never come back."

"Well, that's one way of getting demobbed early," said Annie, with the casual cynicism of the civilian.

Bunter was offended. "You don't know what you're talking about," he said heatedly. "He wasn't the sort to dodge the column. An' after he'd gone, we got one of the other sort in charge. Only took him three weeks to kill off half the squadron."

"All right, all right, no need to be so touchy," said Annie. "Still, if this officer of yours really is off his rocker, it'd be a cushy number, wouldn't it? Unless he's in the loony bin, of course."

Bunter looked startled. Apparently this possibility had never occurred to him.

"Wouldn't he be at home?" he said, uncertainly. "His family's rolling in it. His old man was a Duke."

"Then they probably keep him tucked away somewhere," said Annie. "Toffs don't like their half-wits wandering round where people can see 'em. Like Prince John. Did you know they had his funeral only last week? All very hush hush it was, and no papers or nothing. It's my belief," she added darkly, "that they did away with him. Fourteen's not like four, is it? He was probably gettin' to be an embarrassment."

Bunter stared at her, his face completely unreadable.

"The pay'd be good," he said at last.

"Son of a Duke? You're telling me," said Annie. "Think you might look him up, then?"

"Yeah," said Bunter. "Yeah, I think I will. He'll have to give me the job. He _promised_. So look here, Annie, seeing as I'll be earning a respectable wage soon, will you let me have a go on credit?"

And seeing as Old Winderpane had promised, Annie did.


End file.
